The training and conditioning of any athlete, human or animal, is a complex process. For a trainer to achieve optimum athletic abilities from an animal is certainly the more difficult. To date, in the equine industry, technologically up-to-date input addressing the need for complementary training and conditioning aids, particularly in the area of timing and health stress factors for use by the trainer or handler, has been lacking.
The trainer has many complex variables to address in training and conditioning the equine athlete. These variables include the animal's age, attitude, level of intelligence, adaptability for the specific athletic event, conformational positives and negatives, size, weight, health, and the prior and present level of actual training plus many other factors. The trainer's or handler's level of expertise and experience must be incorporated into the conceived training techniques, along with health stress levels, and the safety of each individual equine athlete being trained and conditioned.
Communication between the trainer or handler and the equine athlete is limited. The animal cannot express, in conventional terms, whether the level of training is adequate or inadequate. The equine athlete can only communicate response by body language, by unacceptable or acceptable behavior, or by observable health problems. Such communication indicates to the trainer or handler that something is not applicable nor adaptable in what is being asked or required of the equine athlete within the training program at that level for the distance and speed being requested. This communication response of the equine athlete becomes evident in all the different areas and levels of equine training.
All trainers conceive and construct specific conditioning schedules for each individual equine athlete. The schedules are subject to change if, when, and where change is needed for progressive results.
A trainer or handler must also cope with changing conditions, both natural and man-made. These changes may be weather conditions, terrain surface, uncooperativness of the equine due to poor previous training and conditioning, the inexperience of young stock, and the constant interaction with other handlers and their equine athletes, particularly in the racing and competitive training area or facility.
It will be a benefit to everyone, including the equine athlete, involved in the training process to have accurate hard-copy results of each training and conditioning exercise. This will allow for immediate assessment of whether over- or under-training and conditioning is occurring. The added benefit of health indicators in the hard-copy record will be of immense help to the trainer so immediate changes can be made in the training program before an irreversible injury to the athlete would occur. Injuries to equine athletes can result in the total loss of the owner's investment in the athlete, an outcome that is to be avoided.
Most race training and conditioning facilities have designated markers of and at ⅛-, ¼-, ½-, ¾-, 1-mile, and up to 1-½-mile distances or more. Other equine competitive events have markers that are particular to the event being conducted. Generally, equine athletes are trained in progressive speed and distance increments to reach their maximum potential. A handler must be able to maintain control of the animal, judge speed and distance, and avoid others, while keeping safety and health concerns primary for the equine athlete, themselves, and other participants.
It should be obvious that it is impossible for the handler to achieve real-time measurement with any significant degree of accuracy under such conditions as have been previously described. It is also difficult, at best, for the trainer to observe and record accurate time and distance measurements from a stationary position at a distance from the moving equine athlete. Operating and observing output from a hand-held stopwatch, and judging precise position relative to distance markers is problematic. Indicators of the actual time and distance traveled are approximate in such an environment using the industry standard method of the hand-held stopwatch or variations thereof.
The apparatus of the present invention will be seen to provide the trainer or handler with accurate time and true distance measurements along with health maintenance indicators in both a visual display and a hard-copy format. The invention will provide, for the first time, a reliable and accurate process and apparatus for collecting and preserving increment and overall elapsed times, along with the actual distance traveled by the equine athlete. Also for the first time, physiological parameters used to assess physical stress will provide humane guidelines for the equine athlete and-for the trainer or handler-technological apparatus by which these factors can be observed, collected, and recorded.